so i have been trying to get back into the habit of ripping things. i have a few hundred cassette tapes crammed under my desk - dj mixes, radio dubs, demos, etc. - that my broken blogger brain had psychically earmarked as "to rip" one hundred years ago after i first found them in whatever storage unit or attic hamper or ebay lot i was rooting around in. since i still have no other capital-c content for you guys my new mission is to finally make good on those promises and just get as much of this shit online as quickly as possible. first up today is two dubs of eazy e's ruthless radio.

legend has it that in 1994, on a whim, eazy started regularly running up into the offices of los angeles radio station 92.3 kkbt the beat asking anyone he could find to give him a show. despite him having exactly zero radio experience they eventually acquiesced, bringing in veteran kday mixmasters julio g and tony g for support. tha ruthless radio show aired from 6-9 on saturday nights, leading into sway & tech's wake up show, and would run for just under a year, winding down shortly after eazy's death in march of '95 (julio g would continue on at 92.3, rebranding his show "westside radio.")

unlike a lot of revered east coast rap radio, the internet's in-context memory of ruthless radio seems pretty thin. there are two partial episodes from shortly after eazy's death over at the hip hop radio archive but beyond that it mostly exists in small fragments online via eazy stans strip mining tapes for exclusives and interviews. as such it is probably most remembered for this incredibly messy on-air argument with tha dogg pound, which is unfortunate because everyone knows real rap radio lives in the mix.

and these are both very good dj sets. there is not earth shattering degree of taste making or "discovery" in the modern sense going on - if you were looking for a g-funk stretch & bob this isn't gonna be that - they mostly just played the hits and the classics give or take a light smattering of deeper shit from the extended ruthless universe. but it was always extremely well selected, well mixed, and in retrospect, pretty eclectic and inclusive given the rising divisions of the era - yes there is loads of g shit but also a lot of the old school funk and electro records that paved the way for it and even a heavy smattering of more street minded east coast boom bap like nas or black moon. (it was even not uncommon for them to sneak death row tracks into the mix despite the still simmering blood feud between the two labels, which, as i read somewhere in a long since closed window, has been retroactively interpreted as an extension of eazy's running "well at least i get paid off the chronic" cope/flex but maybe it was as much an olive branch or at least a tacit admission that those dre records are perfect.)

these are both sixty minute tapes, so not full episodes but a significant chunk at least. streaming on youtube, downloadable from the mighty internet archive, full tracklist in both links. more to come.

9-17-94 (Youtube / Internet Archive)

pretty standard ruthless episode in the best way possible. the track list covers a lot of ground, from me-naj-ah-twa to the roots. bonus points for running mic geronimo's "shit's real" and fat joe's "the shit is real" back to back right before the tape ends. in the middle yella does a short electro set where he drops model 500 (!) and there a brief interview with g-mo of ballin 4 life fame. (there is a live call in from the mtv rock n jock jam which gives us the exact date on this one.)

??-??-95 (Youtube / Internet Archive)

no clear date on this one, eazy doesn't seem to be in the studio so i'm guessing it an early 95 episode, likely taped in the weeks when he was hospitalized prior to his death. they premiere i smooth 7's underrated classic "coolin' in the ghetto" which started popping up on dj charts around april of that year, so that timeline checks out as well. the a-side is mostly old school, with julio quickly jumping around classics from he likes of the gap band and the time and kool & the gang and frankly it is just fantastic and refreshing fast mix of some of the best music of all time. b-side mostly features the core ruthless family - eazy, bone, atl, kokane, brownside - but it also includes a new-to-me track "pass the zigzag" by the oceanside based crew da i.b.s. which is apparently a g-funk era reboot of the wrecking cru adjacent beastie boys type beat group b-boy rage. i.b.s.' "zigzag" is a hard enough song that i almost wasn't going to mention that the bay did it first as always but i had to.